Library & Information Services » network

Short Network Outages in Academic and Administrative Buildings this Sunday morning

Jess Isler — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:14:18 +0000

During this Sunday’s regular maintenance window we will be upgrading the operating system on the Juniper network switches. Each switch will need to be restarted after the upgrade and thus there will be a 5 minute network outage for the local network served by each switch in the following buildings at some point between 7 am and 10 am Sunday morning:

Athletics (including Natatorium and Rink)

Axinn

Bicentennial Hall

Center for the Arts

DKE

FIC

Hillcrest

Kitchell

McCullough

Munroe

Old Chapel

RAJ

Johnson

Service Building

Sunderland

Twilight

Voter

Warner

Youngman Field

Thank you.

Network upgrades (Sunday morning down-time)

Howard McCausland — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:45:37 +0000

This Sunday, during the regular maintenance down-time window, we will be completing network upgrades in Kenyon Arena, as well as replacing network connectivity equipment in Twilight Hall that serves the small residence houses on the east side of campus. Network service will be interrupted for about an hour in Kenyon, and there will be brief interruptions (a few minutes) of service to various east campus residences as network connections are moved. The rest of campus should not be affected.

Campus Network Infrastructure Upgrade

Doreen Bernier — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:52:22 +0000

As mentioned in a previous blog post, LIS is improving and expanding the campus network. Step one was to increase the size of our connection to the Internet, which we have done.

The next step is to upgrade the network infrastructure on campus. This step can roughly be divided into three phases: 1) replace the core network gear in Voter, Davis Family Library and Carr Hall; 2) replace the edge network switches in academic and residential buildings across campus; and 3) replace existing wireless access points in dorms and add new ones. Obviously, this is a vast oversimplification of what is in fact an extremely complicated project! (To give just one example, there are 136 different wire closets to be worked on in phase 2, many containing two or more old switches.)

But we are making progress. Much of the physical installation of the new core equipment is done. Now, as each academic and residential building gets upgraded, we turn off the routing function for those subnets in the old core router and turn that function on in the new core router. Finally, we physically move the fiber cables to connect the new edge switch to the new core router. Most buildings will see a ten-fold increase in network speed when this is done.

On the evening of November 18th, the Donald E. Axinn ’51, Litt. D. ’89 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library became the first major academic building to be upgraded to the new network environment. 16 new switches were installed in the 6 different wire closets in Axinn, the new fiber cables were connected back to the new core router in Voter, and all of the Ethernet cables were moved from the old switches to the correct ports in the new switches. The entire process took about 5-6 hours.

Next up is McCardell Bicentennial Hall, which is scheduled to be upgraded over two nights, December 15^th and 16^th. MBH has 7 wire closets and we’ll be installing 32 new switches and replacing more than 1000 ethernet cables.

A future post will describe our plans for improving wireless in the dorms.

Did the network just get faster?

Michael Lynch — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:05:09 +0000

Generally LIS only hears about it when our systems aren’t responding quickly enough or aren’t working at all. We almost never get a call saying, “Gee, the servers have been up for a very long time without crashing!” or “My gosh, our network is extremely reliable and response time has been really fast lately!” Nevertheless, we continue to work very hard to keep everything running and at top speed. We regularly make improvements behind the scenes to benefit the whole community. One recent such improvement was a doubling of the size of our primary Internet connection.

The College maintains two connections to the Internet: our primary connection is via Level 3 Communications, while Vermont traffic (and failover protection) is supported by a local provider named TelJet. (Both Seven Days and the Burlington Free Press have recently run favorable articles on TelJet.)

Anticipating continuing, steep growth in our network traffic, LIS requested some time ago that Level 3 increase our bandwidth from 200 Mbps to 500 Mbps. (Our TelJet connection is at 100 Mbps.) Just last month, Level 3 completed the upgrade. While you may not have noticed the increased speed on your desktop, you can rest assured that, at least for the time being, the tubes connecting Middlebury to the outside should be big enough to support your academic needs.

Stay tuned to this blog to learn of other plans we have for improving and expanding the campus network!

Wireless access extended throughout Painter Hall

Jeffrey Rehbach — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:08:06 +0000

Working together with Facilities (taking advantage of their project to upgrade fire alarm wiring), we have just installed a number of Wireless Access Points to give wireless service throughout all floors of Painter Hall.

(from Howie McCausland)

Sunderland Fiber Repairs Have Been Successfully Completed

Doreen Bernier — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:39:15 +0000

Submitted by Howie McCausland

Technicians from BTS worked all weekend rebuilding the water-damaged fiberoptic infrastructure in the Sunderland basement wirecloset. Service was restored to Sunderland, the ILC computer labs, and Johnson by midday Sunday; service was restored to Wright Theatre early Monday morning. All damaged fibers were reterminated, with patch panels mounted in a new location where they will no longer be subject to dripping water laden with caustic chemicals.

Before (first photo) and After (second photo)

(Behind the new rack, you can see the rust stains left on the wall from the old corroding boxes and white streaks where alkali-laden water has run down the wall.)

We also used this time to replace and upgrade the ethernet switches serving Sunderland, and to improve the fiber cabling used by Media Services for video and TV feeds from the Sunderland satellite farm.

(We hope in the near future to do a similar “extreme makeover” to the network gear serving Proctor. The situation there isn’t quite so dire, but the extensive revovations offer us the opportunity to relocate the network gear away from the heat and humidity of the current mechanical room.)